I wanted one of the front mounted bike carriers that AL advertise but was put off by the price. The kit comprises a tow ball specifically made to mount onto the Eriba draw bar/chassis and a bike carrier designed to mount onto this. The towball for this kit has a locating lug on it which means that the only carrier that will fit is the one specifically designed for it. I know I have seen ordinary towballs without the lug on caravans so I thought that any towball mounting bike carrier would work if the lug was removed. This means that the same carrier would also be usable on the car's towball. The full kit was supposed to be nearly £500 fitted but the towball adaptor on its own was supplied by Jandi for £129 plus vat.
I knew that nose weight would be a problem but a recent post by Andy (SDA) pointed out that his commonly used red plastic nose weight 'gauge' was out by 35kg! So off I went to get one that is actually calibrated (Millenco £29) and the result was very surprising. The red one's indicated 75kg was much nearer to 45kg !!!!!! Our 2 bikes weigh in at 27kg so that was all the info I needed to proceed.

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Excellent, you must have been reading my mind, we are currently travelling around France with our bikes on the roof rack, with the hit on fuel consumption and increased toll costs. We have been considering the various options and looking at Thule and AL solutions. I hadn't realised that the AL carrier was so expensive. To be honest I wasn't too keen on the AL carrier because it looked from the AL photos that the bikes just hung on two metal bars without any padding or locking devices whereas the Thule solution appears to offer more secure storage mechanisms for the bikes.

We were thinking of the type of solution that you've done which would allow us to use a tried and trusted Thule carrier.

Is there any chance that you could provide more details of how you installed the towball (with photos if possible).

By the way I seem to remember reading an article on the other forum of how to attach a front mounted Thule bike carrier which suggested that the carrier was designed to be canted back towards the car / van and that it could be reversed to cant slightly forward with the horizontal bike arms rotated through 180 degrees. This might then move the handlebars further away from the windows. Alternatively you could rotate the handlebars 90 degrees.

image.jpg - Bild entfernt (keine Rechte)
The tow ball is designed to use the bolt holes that join the hitch to the draw bar. You have to cut a hole in the aluminium cover . The size of this hole depends on the particular tow ball adaptor that is required for your Eriba. There are different sizes of draw bar. The shape of the item is such that the hole has to be quite a lot bigger than the visible part of the adaptor. I will try to scan the German instruction document which has pics on it.
The cutting was a bit nerve racking because, obviously, you have to avoid the draw bar. I removed the rivets which attach the aluminium cover to the plastic hitch cover so I could lift it out of the way then after some careful measuring and template making I got to work with a metal cutting disc in an angle grinder.

Thank gawd the VW T5 bike rack went to full lock with bikes up without a problem pulling the Eriba is all I can say. Otherwise we were going to have to do this.

Very interesting. I used to lift the bikes up onto a roof rack on an X-Trail but heaving them up so high is now beyond me, hence looking for a draw-bar mounted carrier. Nose-weight is a consideration of course. My Kettler Alu-Rad weighs 18.5kg and my wife's smaller framed version a little less. Add the weight of the carrier and adaptor and I'm looking at adding some 44kg onto the hitch.

What model of Thule carrier is it? It does not appear in my 2013 Thule catalogue.

As regards using the Thule carrier on the back of the car, presumably one would also need a light-board plus number plate.

Wenn Sie hier auf Links zu eBay klicken und einen Kauf tätigen, kann dies dazu führen, dass diese Website eine Provision erhält.

Thule Express Pro (970?)
There's one just appeared on eBay.....141325109793

Current bid £1.44
2 days to go.

I have the Uebler X21 which comes top of all our consumer tests. Rock steady, folds up quite small, weighs 13kg, capable of carrying 60kg so plenty enough for carrying 2 E-Bikes and lights/number plates are all integrated into the carrier itself. Nice plus is that you can also tilt it allowing access to the boot even when the carrier is mounted on the towball.

.......but cannot be mounted on the front towball on an Eriba.